Stratford, Pearl-Cohn to finish softball game

After further review, it appears that Friday’s District 10-AA softball tournament game between Pearl-Cohn and Stratford isn’t over after all.

The two teams battled to a 21-21 deadlock before a Stratford player seemingly scored the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. However, she was judged to have missed the plate, eventually tagged out and subsequently ejected for her reaction to the call.

With the ejection, Stratford only had eight remaining players — prompting the lead umpire to declare a forfeit in favor of Pearl-Cohn.

“The (unidentified) umpire does college ball, ASA ball and high school ball,” said Eddie Litton, assignor of umpires for the Nashville Softball Umpires’ Association. “The rule in college and ASA is if you drop below nine players due to an ejection, it’s a forfeit. In high school, if you drop below nine, you can continue and you take an automatic out when the ejected player’s turn in the batting order comes up. The high school rule doesn’t address ejections.

“They should have been able to continue.”

And while the TSSAA doesn’t have a provision for official protests, the decision was made Monday to overturn the incorrect ruling on the field to allow the contest to continue.

“The umpire misapplied the rule,” TSSAA Executive Director Bernard Childress said. “We don’t have a rule saying the team can’t finish with eight players. So we go to the eighth inning, tied, with Pearl-Cohn batting.”

Stratford will play shorthanded for the remainder of the contest and will take an out when the ejected player’s spot comes up in the batting order.

“I’m just relieved that we get another shot to extend our season a little bit longer,” Stratford coach Frederick Copeland said.

Play will resume at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at Buena Vista Park, with the winner to play Christ Presbyterian Academy at 6:30 p.m.